TNR News Network
Shimla:
As Shimla reels from the recent kid*napping of three students from the prestigious Bishop Cotton School (BCS), public attention has also turned back to one of the city’s darkest crimes, the 2014 abduction and mu*rder of four-year-old Yug, a case that shook the conscience of Himachal Pradesh.
The Himachal Pradesh High Court has reserved its judgment on whether to uphold the de*ath sentences handed to the three convicts in the Yug mu*rder case. The three BCS students were abducted by a former alumnus in a carefully planned plot.
The two incidents, though a decade apart, have re-ignited a broader debate over child safety, ransom crimes and the adequacy of institutional protocols in an evolving urban Shimla.
BCS case rekindles memories of Yug’s brutal ki*lling
On August 9 (2025), three 11-year-old students of BCS went missing during their routine Saturday outing. They were later rescued by the police within 24 hours from Kotkhai, where they had been taken by the accused, Sumit Sood, an engineering graduate and former BCS student who had planned the kidnapping to extort ransom, inspired by a crime television show.
The incident brought back haunting memories of Yug Gupta, who was abducted in June 2014 from Ram Bazaar at just four years of age. His kidnappers, Vikrant Bakshi, Chander Sharma and Tejinder Pal, had demanded crores in ransom and ultimately tortured and mu*rdered the child, tying stones to his body and throwing him alive into a water tank in Shimla’s Bharari area.
Yug’s skeletal remains were discovered two years later in August 2016. The brutal nature of the crime led a Shimla Sessions Court in 2018 to label it a “rarest of rare” case and sentence all three convicts to death.
High Court reserves order on confirmation of de*ath penalty
After years of legal proceedings, the case is now in its final stage. A special bench of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, comprising Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Rakesh Kainthla, has reserved its verdict on whether to confirm the death penalty awarded by the trial court.
The high court was hearing both the reference from the sessions court for confirmation of the capital punishment, as well as the appeals filed by the convicts challenging their conviction and sentence. Legal observers say the judgment will not only decide the fate of the convicts but may also set a precedent in how future child-related crimes are dealt with in Himachal’s legal landscape.
Public demands accountability amid safety concerns
The overlap of these two cases has left many in Shimla demanding tougher security norms for children, both in public and institutional settings.
“First it was Yug, now BCS. These cases may differ in detail, but the common failure is the same: a lack of foresight and protection for children,” said a local child rights activist.
“If elite schools like BCS can overlook security protocols despite rising crimes in the city, what hope is there for smaller institutions?” asked a retired CID officer involved in past investigations.
In Yug’s case, the state’s CID gathered strong forensic and circumstantial evidence, leading to a water-tight trial and conviction. But as the BCS incident shows, even elite institutions may not have drawn lessons from past horrors.
